May 9 (Bloomberg) -- Japanese and Australian stock futures
gained, with the Asia-Pacific benchmark equities gauge poised to
extend a five-year high, as rising metals prices boosted raw-material producers and profits at National Australia Bank Ltd.
cheered investors.

Shares of National Australia Bank may be active after the
country’s largest lender by assets reported higher first-half
cash profit. ADRs of BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s biggest
mining company, gained 0.8 percent as metals prices advanced.
Those of Toyota Motor Corp. sank 1.1 percent from the close in
Tokyo after the world’s No.1 carmaker forecast profit and
revenue that missed analyst estimates. Shares of News Corp. may
be active in Sydney trading after the Rupert Murdoch-led media
company reported third-quarter earnings beat estimates.

Futures on Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average expiring in
June traded at 14,365 in Chicago yesterday, up from 14,260 at
the close in Osaka, Japan. They were bid in the pre-market at
14,360 in Osaka at 8:05 a.m. local time. Futures on Australia’s
S&P/ASX 200 Index advanced 0.3 percent before a report that may
show the country’s unemployment rate held at 5.6 percent last
month. New Zealand’s NZX 50 Index lost 0.1 percent.

“The shift of money into equities is going to be an
ongoing theme for a very long time,” said Peter Esho, Sydney-based investment adviser at Wilson HTM Investment Group, which
has $11.8 billion in assets under management. “Investors want a
stable base of earnings and that has been good so far. Central
bank money printing is not changing any time soon. It makes
equity markets look very attractive.”

Hong Kong

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index, the benchmark regional
equities gauge, increased 11 percent this year through yesterday
amid speculation the Bank of Japan will deploy more measures to
beat deflation as policy makers in the U.S. and Europe remain on
standby to buoy growth.

That left the gauge yesterday trading at 14.3 times average
estimated earnings compared with 14.8 for the Standard & Poor’s
500 Index and 13.3 times for the Stoxx Europe 600 Index,
according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Of the 190 companies on the Asia-Pacific measure that have
reported quarterly earnings since the beginning of April, and
for which Bloomberg has estimates, 61 percent have topped
projections, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The Bloomberg China-US Equity Index of the most-traded
Chinese shares in the U.S. climbed 1.8 percent in New York
yesterday. The Chinese government is due to report inflation
data today. Consumer prices probably gained 2.3 percent in April
from a year earlier, below a government assumption for 2013 of
3.5 percent, a Bloomberg survey of 40 economists shows.

The London Metal Exchange Index of industrial metals
climbed 1.9 percent, the most in a month.